Death, the Enemy of Humanity – Charles Spurgeon

O YOU mourners! your somber garments tell me that your family circle has been broken into, time after time, by this ruthless destroyer. The widow has lost her comfort and her stay; the children have been left desolate and fatherless. O death! you are the cruel enemy of our hearths and homes. The youthful spirit has lost half itself when the beloved one has been rent away, and men have seemed like maimed souls when the best half of their hearts has been snatched from them. Hope looked not forth at the window because the mourners went about the streets. Joy drank no more from her crystal cup, for the golden bowl was broken, and the wheel was broken at the cistern, and all the daughters of music were brought low. How often have the unseen arrows of death afflicted our household, and smitten at our feet those whom we least could spare. The green have been taken as well as the ripe: death has cut down the father’s hope and the mother’s joy, and, worse than this, he has pitilessly rent away from the house its strongest pillar and torn out of the wall the corner-stone. Death has no affections of compassion; his flinty heart feels for none; he spares neither young nor old. Tears cannot keep our friends for us, nor can our sighs and prayers reanimate their dust. He is an enemy indeed, and the very thought of his cruel frauds upon our love makes us weep.